The Indiana Pacers appeared to be on the verge of defeat for much of Game 1 in the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night. In fact, the Pacers didn`t take the lead until just 0.3 seconds remained, thanks to another decisive shot from Tyrese Haliburton. With crucial help from Andrew Nembhard`s fourth-quarter performance, Indiana managed to stun OKC and snatch a pivotal Game 1 victory on the road.
This unexpected outcome injects significant excitement into an NBA Finals series that many observers anticipated would conclude within five games. While a relatively short series is still possible, the Pacers emphatically demonstrated once more that they are entirely deserving of competing on this stage against a top opponent. They may still be considered heavy underdogs to win the series overall, but this label serves as powerful motivation for the team, as Haliburton explained after his game-winning jumper.
“After you have a run like last year, and then you get swept in the Eastern Conference finals, and all the conversation is about how you don`t belong there, and how you lucked out to get there, and that it was a fluke, guys are going to be pissed off,” Haliburton said. “We`re going to spend the summer pissed off.”
The Pacers faced similar dismissal in last year`s playoffs. Despite advancing past Milwaukee and New York teams – both significantly impacted by injuries – to reach the conference finals against an overpowering Boston Celtics squad where they were clearly outmatched, the perception lingered. Because their path involved injured opponents, few seriously considered them contenders to return to the conference finals this year, let alone reach the NBA Finals. This skepticism was amplified by their sluggish start to the current season, opening with a 16-18 record through December. Haliburton himself struggled particularly during this period, shooting just 43% from the field, which is highly uncharacteristic for a player capable of achieving a 50/40/90 season.
“Then you come into the year with all the talk around how it`s a fluke,” Haliburton continued. “You have an unsuccessful first couple months, and now that`s easy for everybody to clown you and talk about you in a negative way. And I think as a group, we take everything personal. Like as a group, it`s not just me, it`s everybody. I feel like that`s the DNA of this group, and that`s not just me, that`s our coaching staff. [They] do a great job of making us aware of what`s being said. Us as players, we talk about it in the locker room, we talk about it on the plane. We`re a young team, so we probably spend more time on social media than we should, but I just think we do a great job of taking things personal, and that gives this group more confidence.”
Confidence and a strong collective belief are undeniably defining characteristics of the Pacers` current playoff surge. As Haliburton noted, he is not the only player who internalizes this criticism. Last September, before training camp commenced, Pascal Siakam posted a video on X containing voiceovers where he stated things like “We`ve always got something to prove,” and “We have to be those people that we know that people don`t really want to care about, but we make them care about us.”
In the same video, Myles Turner could be heard mentioning, “Everybody saying we`re one-hit wonders,” making it abundantly clear that the Pacers have consciously used the critiques and doubts directed at them over the past year as significant fuel for their motivation.
This driven mindset has certainly yielded results. Not only did Indiana defy widespread predictions by reaching the NBA Finals, but they have once again surprised the world by achieving a remarkable victory in Game 1. The ultimate objective is to win the entire series, which remains an incredibly difficult undertaking against a Thunder team that will be highly motivated to deliver a strong response in Game 2.
Jasper Hawthorne